Tor.log file still being filled with:
[warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
(Logged around once every second)

Hopefully that's not the issue, but we should know after hours I suppose.

I just checked.  You're right.  I thought it only changed the privilege level, not the actual user logon & related data folders (I'm running it from a non-administrator user environment).  Always something new to learn I suppose(!)  LOL, if I'd known then I'd have copied all the db files.  I'll do that instead so I don't have to wait(!) 

I just start my wallet in Windows 7 Compatibility Mode + with administrator privileges and it has started downloading the block chain from scratch, which I think is strange (not to mention a bit inconvenient); but, anyway, if that's what it takes to figure out what the issue is then, ok.  I will let you know after 8+ hours if it makes a difference or not.

I will try that and let you know tomorrow.

Some good tips there.  I would say one of the best things KoreCoin has going for it at the moment is a committed dev.  Yes, and innovation.  Those two combined are a very constructive formula.

Good idea, but it's best the bugs are sorted out first(!)  It doesn't help Kore gets into the media and then it gets bad reviews because of issues with the wallet.

Yes, I tried your suggestions.  Also deleted the onion and tor folders.  No difference, still not stake.

I'm running Windows 8.0, btw, if that helps to know.

How much am I losing out on by not being able to stake?  I've had my wallet running for almost 4 days so far.

What I mean is: I'd like to test my port 9999.  Is there a host I can establish a TCP connection to in order to test it?  Do you know of such a test host?  Name?  IP address?

BTW, I decided to download the Tor bundle (browser, etc), to see if that works.  It does so, hm, it's strange.

I'm wondering, is there a host on port 9999 I could telnet to or something to test it(?)

No, I'm not a Tor user and don't have other services using ports.  Tried it on two different machines as well, where it also won't stake.  Speaking of my other machine, I just went and took a look at the Tor.log there, and it looks like this:

Jul 06 21:57:48.000 [notice] Tor 0.2.5.1-alpha-dev opening log file.
Jul 06 21:58:01.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 5%: Connecting to directory server.
Jul 06 21:58:01.000 [notice] We now have enough directory information to build circuits.
Jul 06 21:58:01.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 80%: Connecting to the Tor network.
Jul 06 21:58:01.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 85%: Finishing handshake with first hop.
Jul 06 21:58:03.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90%: Establishing a Tor circuit.
Jul 06 21:58:04.000 [notice] Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functionality is working.
Jul 06 21:58:04.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 100%: Done.
Jul 06 21:58:43.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:01:24.000 [notice] Tried for 120 seconds to get a connection to [scrubbed]:28556. Giving up. (waiting for rendezvous desc)
Jul 06 22:01:42.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:01:52.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:02:12.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:02:24.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:02:27.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:02:30.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:02:39.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:03:00.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:03:02.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:05:14.000 [notice] Tried for 120 seconds to get a connection to [scrubbed]:28556. Giving up. (waiting for circuit)
Jul 06 22:05:45.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:05:49.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:05:58.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:06:06.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:06:10.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:07:07.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:07:25.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).
Jul 06 22:08:10.000 [warn] onion_skin_client_handshake failed.
Jul 06 22:08:10.000 [warn] circuit_finish_handshake failed.
Jul 06 22:08:10.000 [warn] connection_edge_process_relay_cell (at origin) failed.
Jul 06 22:08:47.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).

Followed your suggestions but still no change.

Tor.log is still filled with [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)

Also, not sure if it's "normal", but when I run KoreCoin qt for the first time I receive the following error message:
No external address found.
...\KoreCoin\onion\hostname

...and then KoreCoin exits.  Upon starting it for the second time there is no error message and the wallet works, except, of course, as mentioned, there is no staking.

...
07/09/14 17:55:01 Done loading
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadOnionSeed started
07/09/14 17:55:01 Loading addresses from .onion seeds
07/09/14 17:55:01 3 addresses found from .onion seeds
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadOnionSeed exited
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadSocketHandler started
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadOpenConnections started
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadMapPort started
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadOpenAddedConnections started
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadOpenAddedConnections exited
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadMessageHandler started
07/09/14 17:55:01 ThreadStakeMiner started
07/09/14 17:55:01 Flushed 41 addresses to peers.dat  7ms
07/09/14 17:55:01 refreshWallet
07/09/14 17:55:01 ipcThread started
07/09/14 17:55:01 trying connection ajjiyarrgkgvld6d.onion:28556 lastseen=17.6hrs
07/09/14 17:55:01 SOCKS5 connecting ajjiyarrgkgvld6d.onion
07/09/14 17:55:03 UPnP Port Mapping successful.
07/09/14 17:55:14 ERROR: Proxy error: host unreachable
07/09/14 17:55:14 trying connection nj7edctjbazxn6mo.onion:28556 lastseen=20.2hrs
07/09/14 17:55:14 SOCKS5 connecting nj7edctjbazxn6mo.onion
07/09/14 17:55:27 ERROR: Proxy error: host unreachable
07/09/14 17:55:27 trying connection szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556 lastseen=18.3hrs
07/09/14 17:55:27 SOCKS5 connecting szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion
07/09/14 17:55:34 SOCKS5 connected szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion
07/09/14 17:55:34 connected szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556
07/09/14 17:55:34 send version message: version 72100, blocks=144870, us=3f2t57slge3dzamt.onion:28556, them=szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556, peer=szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556, verification=-1279143627731569524
07/09/14 17:55:34 trying connection hl4dykrae4yompsw.onion:28556 lastseen=60.6hrs
07/09/14 17:55:34 SOCKS5 connecting hl4dykrae4yompsw.onion
07/09/14 17:55:34 Added time data, samples 2, offset +8 (+0 minutes)
07/09/14 17:55:34 receive version message: version 72100, blocks=163159, us=0.0.0.0:0, them=szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556, peer=szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion:28556, verification=0
07/09/14 17:55:37 Added 1 addresses from szhz3nrblnnurb5c.onion: 28 tried, 14 new
07/09/14 17:55:38 received block c80b7e3aad7fc2e49df9
07/09/14 17:55:38 aight!
07/09/14 17:55:38 SetBestChain: new best=c80b7e3aad7fc2e49df9  height=144871  trust=1818432529097577  blocktrust=4  date=07/09/14 00:18:19
07/09/14 17:55:38 ProcessBlock: ACCEPTED
07/09/14 17:55:38 received block 5f0e9ace95235a9005f7
07/09/14 17:55:38 aight!
07/09/14 17:55:38 SetBestChain: new best=5f0e9ace95235a9005f7  height=144872  trust=1818432529097581  blocktrust=4  date=07/09/14 00:18:27
07/09/14 17:55:38 ProcessBlock: ACCEPTED
07/09/14 17:55:38 received block afd694454d891fd88903
07/09/14 17:55:38 aight!
...

I checked the tor.log file and it appears Tor is not starting.  The log looks like this:

Jul 09 01:25:39.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 85%: Finishing handshake with first hop.
Jul 09 01:25:40.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 90%: Establishing a Tor circuit.
Jul 09 01:25:40.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 09 01:25:41.000 [notice] Tor has successfully opened a circuit. Looks like client functionality is working.
Jul 09 01:25:41.000 [notice] Bootstrapped 100%: Done.
Jul 09 01:25:41.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 09 01:25:42.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 09 01:25:43.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 09 01:25:44.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
Jul 09 01:25:45.000 [warn] Socks version 80 not recognized. (Tor is not an http proxy.)
...
Jul 09 01:26:03.000 [notice] Closing stream for '[scrubbed].onion': hidden service is unavailable (try again later).

Any ideas about the staking problem?  Anyone?

My wallets are not staking.

Bought coins, transferred to (brand new) wallet.  Waited 24 hours, not staking.  It just says I don't have any mature coins.  I then created another wallet on another machine and transferred my coins there, and waited another (almost) 24 hours.  Nothing, just says I don't have mature coins.

What do I do to get staking to work?

That's the first thing I did(!)  As for another PoW: Just putting it out there.  If nobody says anything then how would the community know what people want?

I just recently discovered KoreCoin.  Nice work.

A request: Another round of PoW?  I missed the first one! 

StartCOIN has been disabled for close on 10 hours now